The Ascension

Forty days after rising from the dead, Christ ascended into heaven before his disciples' eyes (Acts 1:9-11). Giotto shows him rising at the center, hands stretching up into a band of angels and saints, already passing beyond the reach of the apostles and the Virgin who kneel below - his fingertips crossing out of the human realm and blurring into light. From the Arena Chapel cycle in Padua, the scene turns the deep blue that runs throughout the chapel into the very substance of the sky, conveying the divine through pure upward motion.